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Barbados is an independent island nation located in the western Atlantic Ocean, just to the east of the Caribbean Sea, found at roughly 13° north of the Equator and 59° west of the Prime Meridian. Located relatively close to South America, the nation of Barbados is around 434 kilometres (270 mi) northeast of the South American nation of Venezuela. The closest island neighbours to Barbados are ► Martinique to the northwest, ► Saint Lucia and ► Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to the west, ► Trinidad and Tobago to the south, and ► Grenada to the south-west. Barbados is part of Lesser Antilles.

General maps

History maps

This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Barbados, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Barbados.

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Barbados, discovered by Spain around 1500 and shortly settled by Spanish colonists, is settled in 1627 by English colonists. At that time the islands are uninhabited. Barbados becomes a self-funding colony under uninterrupted British rule. Nevertheless, Barbados always enjoys a large measure of local autonomy. From 1833 to 1885 it is part of the Windward Islands. In 1958 the island becomes a territory of the British West Indies. After the dissolution of the British West Indies in 1962, Barbados becomes a separate dependency again. In 1966 Barbados becomes independent as a parliamentary democratic monarchy.

Old maps

This section holds copies of original general maps more than 70 years old.

The Island of Barbadoes. Divided into its Parishes, by Hermann Moll, 1736

Barbados from Thomson's New General Atlas, 1817

Satellite maps

Satellite map

Notes and references

General remarks:

The WIKIMEDIA COMMONS Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. The main page is therefore the portal to maps and cartography on Wikimedia. That page contains links to entries by country, continent and by topic as well as general notes and references.

Every entry has an introduction section in English. If other languages are native and/or official in an entity, introductions in other languages are added in separate sections. The text of the introduction(s) is based on the content of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. For sources of the introduction see therefore the Wikipedia entries linked to. The same goes for the texts in the history sections.

Historical maps are included in the continent, country and dependency entries.

The status of various entities is disputed. See the content for the entities concerned.

The maps of former countries that are more or less continued by a present-day country or had a territory included in only one or two countries are included in the atlas of the present-day country. For example the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Atlas of Turkey.